There are a lot of nice bookcases out there, but many of them don’t fit your exact walls, and most can’t be installed in an apartment. That can be worked around in crafty style with plumbing pipes and some weekend time.
Using actual plumbing pipes and wood boards of their choice, a couple with really high walls but not a lot of leeway for in-unit construction built a perfect set of shelves for their stuff. Using a previous Apartment Therapy how-to, Elizabeth and Mike, with the help of handy friend Roger, bought and designed custom shelves for a price that’s not all that shocking:
In order to keep costs down, Roger designed a unit using standard measurements, so that no pipe or pine boards would need custom cuts. They found everything they needed at Home Depot for $250 (including all basic supplies, like tarps, tools, and brushes). The black matte finish of the pipes wasn’t exactly what they had envisioned, but they loved the result.
Hit the link for a full photo walkthrough. What have you used to make your own shelves in your own apartment or home before? Tell us—or, better yet, show us—in the comments.
Some bedrooms catch a lot of sleep-disturbing light at night, but many sleepers like to wake up with a bit of natural light. Meet the morning halfway with a hotel-style setup of curtains over sheers, as suggested by Apartment Therapy.
No matter how nice the pads, some rental buildings have very ugly legacy items in plain view: intercoms, doorbells, even exposed electrical boxes. Home improvement website Unplggd has an easy solution for covering them up.